Day One from Jack's POV
by Evey Edge
Summary: The second episode of season 1 from Jack's point of view. Jack/Gwen in a few sections.
1. Chapter 1

Simple locating clean up operation

Susie had been dead for seven days. The week I'd given Gwen to get her affairs in order and recover from the trauma of her first Torchwood encounter was finally up. I had to admit I was relieved. I was ready to start over, begin a new chapter of Torchwood. I wanted to fix the mistakes I had made with Susie. I was also looking forward to seeing Gwen Cooper again. Stupid to miss someone who'd I'd spent less than 12 hours with, but there it was. I felt sure a week was enough time for a person as strong as her to recharge and process everything she'd seen. When she came in tomorrow morning she would be ready, or as ready as anyone is on their first day at Torchwood. She wasn't who I was worried about.

In the past week the Hub had felt the loss of Susie Costello. I couldn't be sure if it was her death or the final actions of her life that kept Owen, Tosh, and Ianto moving around headquarters like it was some kind of tomb. Nobody laughed, nobody talked everybody just worked. The air was stifling, thick as it was with all of the things we weren't saying to each other. If I were a different kind of boss maybe I'd hold a grief counseling session. Unfortunately the only way I way I can get people to open up, well open up _emotionally_, is by pointing a gun at their head. Somehow I don't think that would help relieve the tension around here. The way I've chosen is much simpler. Some people would say replacing Susie so quickly was bad for my team, insensitive. I say if something rips, you patch the hole before it gets any bigger. I could hear the alarm sound on Tosh's computer from through the glass walls of my office. Maybe I'd be patching that hole sooner than I thought.

"Tosh, what have we got?"

"Incoming space debris, maybe no more than two meters in diameter, from the readings I'd say meteorite."

"What about trajectory and velocity? Is it dangerous?" Tosh's eyes scanned the screens of information doing the complicated equations necessary in her head.

"Unlikely. The collusion will create impact trauma for a 20 meter radius, but it look like it's going to land about ten minutes outside the city."

"Good. Owen, grab the kit. Toshiko, send a message to Gwen's cell. I want her here fast." Owen paused mid-step and turned to look at me. "Problem, Owen?"

"Do we really need the newbie? This is nothing we haven't handled before and who knows how long it will take for her to get here. You know what a pain in the arse it is when the amateurs arrive first."

"Your concern is noted. Now go get the kit." I'm pretty sure whatever Owen muttered under his breath wasn't complementary to me, but since he did head of to do what he was told, I didn't mind too much.

"Tosh?"

"She just texted me back. She'll be here in ten minutes."

"Ten minutes? I thought her flat was farther away than that."

"It is. She must have been out. Some people do have lives outside of work. Or at least so I'm told." Tosh was probably right. I had very likely interrupted Gwen Cooper's personal life. Some who works for me had a personal life. That's a novelty. I wonder where she'd been. At the pub with her friends? Gwen seemed like someone who would have a lot of friends. Hopefully if that's where she had been she hadn't drunk too much. Bad things tended to happen when Torchwood was mixed with tequila. Where else could she have been? Where did normal people go on their nights out? The movies? A karaoke bar? I could almost picture it. Gwen on stage swaying back and forth belting out some awful pop song. Toshiko was looking at me. I guess I didn't stifle my chuckle as well I'd intended.

"Care to share what so funny with the rest of the class, captain, while we're stuck here waiting for your new recruit." I guess Owen had finished gathering the equipment.

"Gwen's not my new recruit, she's your new team member."

"Yeah whose hiring I didn't get a say in."

"I wasn't aware personnel recruitment was one of your specialties Owen."

"Judging what happened with Susie, it doesn't seem to be one of yours either." The room got very quiet, very quickly. None of the members of my team have a military background and I would never recruit someone who did. People extensively drilled in rules and regulations tend to have trouble adjusting to a world that obeys none. Still some things could be said for military discipline, like for example that it teaches people not to disrespect their commanding officer.

"I also recruited you Owen. Was I wrong there to? " I kept my voice light and let my eyes communicate the warning behind the comment. Owen broke our staring contest.

"Just saying it might have been to be asked. I am going to be putting my life into her hands after all." True enough. It was a bit of a weigh on my mind to know that if I'm wrong about Gwen, the most probable victims of my error would be my team. Regardless I felt some kind of crazy unshakable confidence about her. I wasn't wrong. Not this time.


	2. Chapter 2

"I guess you're just going to have to trust me

It's important to remember that whenever a person takes on a new job, no matter how qualified they are for it, there is always an adjustment period. It is the responsibility of the boss to help his new employee make that transition as swiftly as possible. Personally I'm a firm believer in the trial by fire approach. That's why I decided to call Gwen in 12 hours earlier than I'd initially planned, I wanted to get her into the field as quickly as possible.

"Simple location/clean up operation. Find that meteorite before anyone else gets their hands on it." I was only saying this for Gwen's benefit as Tosh and Owen already knew what was going on. I would probably be giving a lot of these kinds of explanations over the next few weeks. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Gwen was barely controlling a grin from spreading across her face. "Good to see you, by the way." And it was. Certainly a welcome change from the zombies I'd been working with for the past week. At least someone was happy to be here.

"Tosh, you found it yet?" Nice to see Owen was still sulking.

"You got enough kit?" Gwen sounded impressed. One of problems about having a secret organization is we're not allowed to show off for people. It's a shame because I really get a kick out of some of their reactions.

"Basic tracking and surveillance. The crash site. With this we can tap into CCTV networks, national databases." At least Tosh was being instructive and helpful.

"Is this CRIMINT. This is the police computer system. You shouldn't have this!" She's still thinking like a cop. Hope it won't take her too long to let go of that.

"You might want to stop saying "you" and start saying "we"." She may have only started tonight, but that didn't matter. She didn't belong to them anymore, she belonged to me. She'd been mine from the first minute I saw her, just neither of us had known it then.

"Crash site is one hundred meters ahead." I saw the lights and the assortment of tents at the same time Owen did.

"Shit. The amateurs got here first." Perfect. The police were bad, enough walking all over the place, disturbing things in their ignorance that ought not to be disturbed. At least they tried to be cautious and were generally compliant about letting us do our job. Gwen's case was the exception that proved the rule. The military was a much higher level of irritating, both with their "shoot first" philosophy and their rampant egoism. They weren't big on being told to step aside.

"All right. Usual formation." The most important thing in this type of situation is to look like you know what you're doing. We do of course, but that's not really the point. The point is to let the big macho men know that you're here and you mean business. You spread out, show off you numbers, and push your way through the sea of camaflouge.

We made it to the site entrance getting into a minimal number of pissing contests. Most of the ranking officers must have been off strategizing or reporting to base or whatever the hell they did. Must be our lucky day. Or maybe not. Gwen seemed to have disappeared.

"Owen, what happened to Gwen?"

"What do you mean boss?" Owen looked around and then laughed. "New girl's gone already has she? That didn't last long, did it?"

"You were the last one talking to her."

"What and that makes me her bloody nanny?" This passive-aggressive shtick Owen has going on is going to get old real fast.

"She couldn't have gone far Jack. Do you want me to go looking for her?" Tosh's offer was sweet, but impractical. Chances are Gwen had run into trouble with some uniformed gorillas and, tough as she was, Tosh was not our best option for dealing with that kind of situation.

"Thanks Tosh, but I got it. You and Owen go ahead without me."

It didn't take me long to find her, I just followed the smelled of inflated ego. Well that and the sound of her voice.

"Don't mess with me, little girl." It sounded like the amateurs were trying to bully my newest team member. Totally unacceptable. "You're not with Torchwood. And even if you were ..."  
I took this as my cue to enter the back of the tent.

"You'd have put out the welcome banners! Now, first of all, she's no little girl. From where I'm standing, all the right curves in all the right places." Important things to appreciate even in times like these. "But she is Torchwood. We both are. And we'd appreciate it if you'd leave us to do the real work." I waited a few seconds while the man struggled with his dashed sense of self-importance. "Shall we?" I held out my hand to Gwen as though I was about lead her out onto the dance floor and pulled her through tent and toward the trench that had been dug by the space rock. It took me a minute for me to realize I was still holding her hand. I certainly didn't mind, it felt warm and comfortable in mine, but it really wouldn't do either of us any good if Owen caught me doing it.

"So let's see what we came for." One positive about having other people on site first was that the path down to the meteorite had already been lit. When we reached the bottom Tosh and Owen were busy taking measurements.

"What do we know?"

"Bog standard space debris. That's a technical term." A twinge of condescension, but nowhere near bad on the Owen scale.

"Yeah, thanks."

"So take all the readings and let's get out of here." If Gwen thought the we had a lot of computer equipment, what would she make of this. I started tossing Owen all the tools he'd need from the box at my feet. Neither of us had to think about what we were doing. It was effortless after the three years of working together. I wonder how long it would be before I shared this kind of familarity with Gwen. I thought about giving her something to do, but decided it would be better to let her observe how we worked for a little bit. For fifteen minutes the little cavern was silence except for the scraping of tools on space rock and the beeping of our hand held monitors.

"Make yourself useful, sweetheart! Pass us the big chisel from the toolbox." I caught myself just before I'd looked over at Owen. If Gwen's going to be part of the team she'd have to handle him on her own.

"Not sweetheart - Gwen. One syllable, sure you can manage it." She's not taking crap from him. Good.

"Not Sweet Cheeks? Freckles? New Girl?" Owen was a great doctor, but he had all the emotional maturity of a 15 year old boy.

"It's a shame your tool's not big enough for the job, darlin'." Nice bad Gwen. I can see great innuendo banter in our future. "Catch!" What was she- Shit! The chisel flew through the air and lodged itself inside the rock. For a second nothing happened, then a light came from inside the meteorite. Great. For once it couldn't have just been ordinary space junk.

I managed to get gas masks to everyone before a swirling pink gas leaked from the hole and swirled around the crash sit and up into the night sky. What had just been unleashed on Cardiff? I couldn't stop myself from send Gwen a look almost identical to the one Owen was giving her. Adjustment periods, easier in some jobs than in others.


	3. Chapter 3

It had been long ride back to the Hub. Owen and Toshiko had been completely silent, choosing to communicate any negative thoughts they had through sharp glances and body language. Gwen had been no where near as quiet. Every few minutes, she'd burst out with a new string of apologies. I got that she felt bad for screwing up, I really did, but repetition was starting to get on my nerves. I had hoped she'd run out of steam during the forty-five minutes drive, but apparently I had no such luck.

"I'm so sorry."

"Seriously, stop saying that." Especially because the whole damn thing was at least partially my fault. If I hadn't decided I needed to bring her in early…

"But I am! I mean, really, I mean really, really sorry. God, I can't believe it." Would yelling at her help Gwen focus, or would it just make things worse? I really didn't want to play the hard ass on her first day, but if she kept this up I wasn't left with a lot of opinions.

"Didn't they teach you Health and Safety in the police?" Good, maybe Owen will take care of the yelling for me.

"You two chucked tools at each other, so I ..." I did want her to observe our operational procedure. I guess that brilliant idea had kind of backfired.

"We didn't miss." Owen was being pretty unpleasant considering was he had done on his first operation. It's amazing Toshiko ever spoke to him again after that. She must have been smitten with him even then.

"-I mean, it was just gas, wasn't it? That can't be too bad, can it?" She's really not helping herself.

"Right, because gas never did anyone any harm." One nice thing of having Owen is he says all of the harsh but true things so I don't have to. Keeps me from looking like the bad guy.

"On the plus side, we've got good evidence, relatively undamaged." With everything we'd gotten before the accident and all the tests we could run on the sample here in the lab I would guess we'd have a good place to start looking in a few hours. The silver lining, that is what we need to focus on.

"On the downside, there's an alien on the loose, we don't know where it is, why it's here or what it's going to do." Owen's really making my job harder today. On the one hand I'd love to tell him to shut up. I don't need Gwen to lose anymore self-confidence than she already has. On the other hand I can't say anything because it'll hurt Gwen in the long run. If I coddle her now it'll make everyone, especially Gwen herself, doubt if she can stand on her own.

"Give her a break." At least Tosh has a little compassion.

"God, this has been the worst first day ever." Not exactly how I'd imagined it either, but the world goes on.

"We all make mistakes." God knows some of the ones I've made have been a hell of a lot worse. "Get over it. Now we find and recover whatever came out of there."

"This might help." One day I got to learn how Ianto does that appearing out of no where trick. "Nightclub death been phoned in to 999. Circumstances sound ... a little unusual. Might be connected." I've got to say his timing is impeccable. The sooner we catch this thing, the better.


	4. Chapter 4

"Jack? The new girl is-" I'd thought Owen was more of professional than to continue whine about Gwen while we were out in the field. I had more urgent things to deal with at the moment.

"Not now Owen. I'm Captain Jack Harkness. Can you tell us what happened here?" The night club owner looked up at me from where he was twitching in his chair. His eyes nervously flitted from me to my team members standing behind me, reminding me of a trapped rodent. A large trapped rodent.

"Jack?" Now Tosh was getting in on it too? What was this, a mutiny?

"Not now. So what can you tell us?"

"I've already been over it with the police." The owner looked at us warily; probably worried he'd be blamed for what had gone on here last night. The way he shifted in his seat told me he was probably guilty of something, but I doubted it was on the same level of the bad that had brought us to his night club.

"We're not the police so I'll need you to go over it again. Now in the initial report you said this occurred in the women's loo?"

"Yeah, that's right yeah."

"Well lead the way." I stepped aside as the large man unsteadily pushed himself out of his chair and headed toward the back of club. I turned to look at my team.

"Well what is-" I had a sudden rush of de á vu. "Where's Gwen?"

"Well let me think. Tosh, what was that we were trying to say earlier before we were shushed like three-year-olds? Oh yeah that's right we've lost her. Again. I reckon next time we should try fitting her with a leash or maybe a GPS collar."

"Since we're shopping at the pet store, we should get you a muzzle as well." I ran out toward the front door before Owen had a chance to respond. Gwen hadn't wandered far. As far as I could tell she stopped to talk with one of the cops standing guard.

"Coming?" She needed to learn fast she had better things to do than make nice with the local authority.

"Yeah, sorry." I turned and headed back inside. Within a few seconds Gwen had caught up with me.

"Sorry about that, seeing Andy caught me a bit off guard." Andy? Gwen actually knew the man in the ridiculously ugly yellow jacket? I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later, given Gwen was a policewoman, but what are the odds of it happening on her first day? She couldn't have known every cop on the force. But apparently she did know the cop at door, knew him well enough to call him by his first name. She knew him well enough to take a break from our investigation to stop and chat with him. To stop and chat with _Andy_. For some inexplictable reason the man's name had become an object of irritation.

"Just stay with me next time. Follow my lead. Here we go." I opened the door to the women's tiolet and gestured for Gwen to enter. "Ladies first." Owen, Tosh, and the owner were already inside staring at a pile of ash in the middle of the floor.

"What are we looking at?"

"Apparently the remains of a man who was young and healthy until about two AM this morning." I glanced at the club owner for confirmation of Tosh's statement. He nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off the grey matter.

"This is all that's left?" Gwen seemed to have as much trouble believing it as the witness did. It's not easy to accept a whole living person can be reduced into a small pile of nothing in so short a time.

"How's that possible?" The owner obviously didn't get how this whole interviewer/interviewee thing worked.

"The question is how did you know this used to be a body?" The man squirmed for a moment before answering.

"I had a security camera in installed last year, for uh…a monitoring drug activity…police have been cracking down on that kind of thing. I was uh…taking a shift manning the cameras when it…happened. Bit of a shock, I tell you." Something told me watching the cameras hadn't been all he was doing. Makes me glad I hadn't shaken his hand when I introduced myself.

"We need to see that CCTV."

If I had wanted Gwen's first case to be an interesting one, I had certainly gotten my wish. An alien that screws men to death, that was definitely first. Closest thing I could think of was those babies-eating bug aliens that had been kidnapping humans and forcing them to breed by dousing them with that pheromone spray. We manage to kill the bugs, but not before they hit us all with their sex juice. I don't really know what happened after that, a side-effect of the spray, just that the rest of the team and I woke up naked in separate cells of the vault two days later. Ianto told us afterwards that he'd driven out to the bug farm, sedated us, and brought us back to the Hub to be quarantined. He's never actually told what we all doing when he got there. This is probably better for everyone's working relationship.

"Oh, my God! He just ..."

"Came and went." Nothing like a little sexual humor to lighten up a murder investigation.

"That's the way I'd like to go." Wouldn't we all? I personally never got this whole "going peacefully in my sleep" crap. Although I this point I'm not really that picky.

"How can that be? It doesn't make any sense. It's not possible." Three most common phrases for a Torchwood witness. Fortunately for him, he wouldn't be troubled by his questions much longer.

"Do you know the girl's name? Did the two of them arrive together or meet in the club? Is she a regular? Would any of the other staff know her?" I'll give her one thing, she seems to have the interrogation skills down pat. It's a shame grilling this guy won't help us at all.

"I dunno! We get hundreds of people here every weekend. I don't keep tabs."

"Thanks for your help. We've got all we need." Anything we might learn from this guy we can get 20 times faster from our equipment back at the Hub.

"What are you talking about? We haven't got a clue. We don't even know her name!" Explaining how we did things at Torchwood and running an investigation at the same time wasn't as easy as it sounded in theory. I can't afford to pause every five minutes when there's something out there killing people I've sworn to protect. First things first though: containment.

"We'll need a body from the cryo-chamber, close match to the dead guy's appearance. Disfigure the face, dump it someplace remote, make it look like a suicide attempt." Staging suicide was always preferable whenever possible. Murders get looked into, investigated, which becomes a problem when the real culprit isn't exactly something that can be stored in a regular cell. Suicides nobody looks into too closely.

"You have a stash of bodies?" I never really understood what the point of a rhetorical question was. The reason to ask questions was to get answers. If you had the answer already, why ask the question? The device in my hands was giving me readings coming from the back alley.

"What about his family? You can't just fake his death." We're hardly faking it. He is dead, we're just altering the supposed circumstances.

"You want to tell his family he died screwing an alien?" Contrary to popular childhood myths, honesty was often not the best policy, especially when it came to preventing widespread panic of alien invasion.

"We don't know that for sure." We do according to what it says on my screen. I showed Gwen the monitor.

"Same elements we recorded at the crash site. Traces all over the club but strongest in this area. Something happened here." And fortunately we had another camera that must have caught the whole thing.

Gwen was quiet while we watched the CCTV showing the girl we'd seen in the bathroom be entered by the same pink mist that had fled the crash site.

"It's my fault. If it weren't for me, he'd still be alive." Part of the nature of being in Torchwood was that people would die because of you. It was an inevitability, no matter how good, smart, or careful you were. Gwen's day had come sooner than most. The real bitch of the thing was that I couldn't tell her it wasn't her fault. It didn't matter that it had been an accident. Intentions changed neither cause nor effect. She needed to know that as surely as I did. It would help her learn to be more cautious, so that hopefully the next death would be farther away on the future's horizon. There was no sure thing as indefinite prevention. There would always be another. But it did no good to dwell on it.

"That'll get you nowhere, that sort of thinking. At least now we know a little more. The alien's taken on a host body." I grabbed all that tapes we were going to have to be doctored when this investigation was all over.

"We can't let her kill again." Gwen left I room before me, her shoulders slightly slumped over with the weight of her new burden. I felt a twinge of guilt. If I had left her alone she would still be an ordinary cop, as ignorant and untroubled as that man in the ugly yellow jacket. Poor Gwen Cooper, what am I going to do to you?


	5. Chapter 5

So, what's this supposed to do

"So, what's this supposed to do?" Calculating the angles and velocities of objects moving through space was so elementary to a man of my travel experience I didn't need to pause from my work to answer Gwen's question. The real trick would be how to explain what I was doing in a way that was both impressive and incomprehensible…

"I'm using satellite-tracking data to determine the inward trajectory of the meteorite." Yeah…that sounded pretty good.

"He means he's trying to find out where it's come from." Spoilsport.

"Hey! Sometimes techno babble is good for the soul." Next thing you know Gwen will actually understand what we do here at Torchwood, and I won't get to see those cute big-eyed faces she makes when I'm speaking gibberish.

"So this is a route planner." Clearly the damage had been done. I have a green laser and fantastic star chart with plenty of complex mathematical equations and now she sees it as something dull and practical.

"Not far off." This whole "instruction" thing is really going to take the wonder out of the training experience.

"Rhys, my boyfriend, is a transport manager. He does this sort of stuff. On a slightly smaller scale, though." So the boyfriend does what I do on a "slightly" smaller scale. I bet that's true in more areas than just our jobs.

"You have a boyfriend?" Toshiko sounds almost surprised. Strange when she was the one to suggest that regular people have lives outside work. By this generation's definition "lives" tended to include a steady romantic partner. Maybe that's where Gwen had been last night, out with her boyfriend. If that was the case I was somewhat less repentant I called her in early. I had definitely preferred my karaoke fantasy. Gwen was going on about all of our single status.

"None of you have partners?" She almost made it sound like there was something wrong with us.

"Just you, newbie." Maybe there was. Or maybe we just had to adjust our priorities a bit given the fact we're responsible for the fate of the world. Either or.

"I'm not being rude or anything, but ..." Any statement that starts with that is bound to end interestingly. "Well, maybe I am, but ... how do you switch off from all this stuff? What do you do to relax?" Relax? Apart from picking men and woman in bars a couple nights a week, nothing. Maybe I should buy a TV for the Hub. I glanced at Owen, but if the look on his face was any indication, his answer was probably no better than mine. Owen looked at Tosh whose gaze immediately dropped to her computer. Well there Gwen had it. Party animals we were not.

"I torture people in happy relationships." As good a glib remark as any to end that awkward conversation.

"Any one for coffee?" Ianto's offer was greeted by multiple responses in the affirmative. Not surprising considering that two, probably all three of them were pushing 26 hours with no sleep. What the Hub really needed was an on-call room, like they have in hospitals. Just because

I can't sleep doesn't mean no one else should.

"Gwen, how do you take yours?" Gwen's first Torchwood coffee. Definitely a Kodak moment. Shame I don't have a camera.

"Just a regular black with one sugar will be fine, thanks." Truly a waste of Ianto's prodigious skills but this, like everything else, Gwen would learn this in time. "Ianto?" The hesitation in Gwen's voice made it sound like whatever she wanted to ask, she didn't necessarily want to know the answer to. If this was going to be the same question Tosh, Owen, and I have just been stuck with, I was curious to hear his response. It's kind of hard for me to imagine Ianto existing anywhere but here, bringing us coffee, manning the front desk, ordering us take-out. He spent more time at the Hub than anyone but me.

"Yes?" Gwen opened her mouth, shut it again, a forced a smile.

"Never mind." Interesting. Why would she feel comfortable asking us personal questions and not Ianto? Maybe it was because Ianto's niche at Torchwood was somewhat separate from the main team. He was always on the fringes assisting, but never in the center of anything. Another possibility is it had nothing to do with Ianto. What Gwen had established with her first round of questions was that at least three out of the four of her new coworkers had no personal life to speak of. That by itself suggested a negative correlation between Torchwood and a happy home life. For her to ask Ianto and have his answer make the score 4 for 4 might, to her mind, spell out a prophesy of doom. Hard to say whether I would agree that assessment.

"Gas traces confirmed as Vorax and Suranium." Good now we can focus back on the case, which I think is slightly more important than our love lives.

"Great, my two favorite gases. Can we do a check, and find out what we know about them?"

"I'm all over it." This is good. We know the gases, we find the planet, we find the planet, we find the species, we know how to stop it.

"What's this doing?" Gwen was looking at the monitor for the facial recognition program. That little beauty was the reason we don't need to waste our time talking to witnesses.

"I've taken an image of the girl from the CCTV. This cross-checks her face with the UK population." Well the UK population whose ages are over five. We start monitoring citizens the second they enter the education system. Basically if a four-year-old is destined to bring about the end of the world, we were screwed.

"You can't have every face in the UK on there. That would be against civil liberties, data protection, all that stuff ..."

"Still doing that "you" instead of "we" thing." If she keeps this up it was really going to start hurting my feelings.

"Ah. A hundred and nineteen suspects. This thing's supposed to give us a single match." So much for our superior technology.

"The CCTV was too low res. I've tried magnifying and augmenting but it just breaks up. Which means that the software can't function properly." So we were going to have to rely on old fashioned human intelligence. Good thing our computers didn't fail us too often.

"It's narrowed the numbers down. I could check through the rest. You know, the old fashioned way - with my eyes." Slow and imprecise.

"What about the fingerprints I took off the alley wall?" I'd had some doubts about letting her go back for those, but it was hard to refuse those big well-meaning eyes of hers. Besides there's no law saying we can't get lucky on occasion. The computer came back negative. No law but Murphy's law, which seems to hold particular sway in this building.

"It was a long-shot, anyway."

"Just a bit." Owen's back to his snide comment stand-by. Perfect. That always moves an investigation right along.

"Least I'm trying to do something." Uh oh, now it sounds like she's stirring for a fight too. This can only end in spilt coffee.

"No, you're trying anything." Helpful thoughts, what else do we have?

"The CCTV must have picked up her arrival at the club. Tosh, can you reformat the image recognition software to trace her journey backwards via the street camera network?"

"It'll take a while to process. Every possible turn on every street corner means hundreds of thousands of probabilities." And hours of time for Owen and Gwen to kill each other.

"Have a go. At least we'll know where she started the evening." Maybe I should institute a Torchwood conflict resolution policy. Single unarmed combat maybe. Or better yet mud-wrestling. Naked mud-wrestling.

"We could cross reference that with the addresses on the remaining face matches." Not a bad idea at all. I think she's starting to get the hang of it.

"Good one, newbie! That's a bit more like it!" Well that's one fire put out for now. Shame about the mud-wrestling though.


	6. Chapter 6

What's going on

"Alright everyone suits and masks on. Toshiko with me. Gwen and Owen cover the back. Let's move." I watched as they disappeared round the corner of the house. I'd give them seconds to be in place. Oh crap, I'd forgotten to get Gwen a gun. Now I have to rely on Owen to take care of her. It should be fine. Owen may be an ass, but he's a competent ass. Still I'd rather be protecting her myself.

"Alright let's move in!" Clearly we arrived not a minute too soon. The poor man the alien is startling had no idea how lucky he'd been by not to get lucky.

"What's going on?!" The gratitude, one of the things I love best about this job.

"Put your trousers on and get out. NOW!" What is it about yelling that makes people understand me better? "It always breaks my heart to say those words." At least it used to. These days it's usually me that sneaks out early. Kinda hard to bring people back to my place when it's a headquarters for a secret alien-hunting organization.

"Air quality's okay." Good, these masks are uncomfortable, not to mention unattractive. Crap the prisoner!

"Gwen, look out!" I tried to draw a bead on girl but Gwen's too close, I could hit her. Damn! She won't get far, its not like she can outrun us barefoot in a robe. What the hell. Owen had stopped the prisoner with technology I had not checked out of storage.

"What's that?" A very good question.

"It's a sort of inflatable cell. Power runs down after an hour. The battery life's bollocks."

"Who said you could use that?" A week after Susie and it's like he's learned nothing.

"Um, I just stopped a prisoner escaping." True, but it doesn't excuse him.

"You know the rules. None of that stuff leaves the building without my expressed permission." I doubt the inflatable cell is in the same league as the glove but I promised myself this was going to be a more cautious Torchwood regime. No exceptions.

"Fine. Don't thank me." Will he ever learn? One good thing at least, we caught and contained the alien threat.

"Come with us." Gwen had taken two steps toward the door before stopping again. "Jack, do think maybe we should get her into some clothes first?" A strange gesture of compassion considering it was Gwen who wanted the girl caught so badly. Looking at the girl it was hard to believe she was a murderer. She looked so small and pathetic, trembling there in her robe. I'm a hard man, but I'm not that hard.

"Fine. You and Toshiko watch her change, then bring her right back down here. She's your responsibility."

"You sure that's a good idea, boss? Leaving newbie in charge of the prisoner?" To give Owen credit, he did wait until Gwen was out of earshot.

"Toshiko is backing her up and we're guarding the exits. Our captive is not going anywhere. And for the record, I'm always sure."

A few minutes later Gwen and Tosh were back with a full-clothed shag-murdering alien. She didn't appear to be resisting, but all the same I was glad to have her locked securely in the back of the SUV. The whole car was quiet on the drive back, much quieter than during our usual prisoner transports. Generally the only prisoners we take are the Weevils. Everything else we fight usually ends up dead at the scene. I wonder if that's a commentary on our typical mode of operation. It felt a bit awkward transporting something that could understand what we say. Although who knows, maybe the weevils do understand. Maybe they just don't think we are worth talking to. God knows I've felt like that from time to time. Hopefully our vault-bound friend will be a little more communicative than our other prisoners.


	7. Chapter 7

"See what you can find out from her

An important part of being a good boss is having the ability to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of employees and designates tasks accordingly. The short time I've spent with Gwen Cooper has taught me that if there is one thing she can do it's ask questions. My candidate for prisoner interrogation was pretty obvious.

"See what you can find out from her." This will be good, give her a chance to prove herself on her own.

"But aren't you going to help me? I don't know what I'm doing." Admitting that is generally not a good strategy.

"Usually better if you don't say that in front of the prisoner." There are exceptions of course. Sometimes letting yourself appearance weak, then going for the jugular throws the captive off balance enough to get what you want from them. Takes me back to the interrogations I used to conduct. All that blood. All that screaming. No point in thinking about it. Gwen's chat won't get anywhere near that messy. I've changed. I have limits.

"Jack, why is Freckles down in the vaults with the prisoner all by herself?" Ok this has got to stop.

"She's conducting the interrogation. I need you to start analyzing the data from the cell as soon as it starts coming in. Toshiko I want you to stay on the gas. I want to know what it is, where it's from, and how to kill it."

"Jack-"

"Owen, she used to be a policewoman, she can handle this. Comparatively she's done decently so far. She hasn't, for example come in an hour and a half after she was paged piss drunk and vomited all over her coworker and her coworker's computer." After three years I still don't think the smell is gone. At least Owen looks adequately chastised. Good. At this point questioning Gwen is tantamount to questioning my judgment. With everything that's ahead of us I can't afford for my team not to trust me. "If you're worried, pull up the vault camera and watch from here." Let Owen spy on her. It never hurts to be cautious and saves me from doing it and sending a mixed message to Tosh and Owen. Trust, Jack. Think trust.

When Owen interrupted a few minutes later, I could tell from his tone he was happy about something. That in it of itself was enough to worry me. When I came over to the screen I completely understood his attitude. Like I said before, all the right curves in all the right places. If this is what police interrogation is like these days, I have got to get myself arrested. Soon. Within the next five minutes.

"She said she had a boyfriend." Clearly Gwen had a more enlightened and flexible approach to sex than her generational peers.

"You people and your quaint little categories." Flexible. One had to wonder how flexible. Would she be up for, hypothetically speaking, a few after hour games with me and Ianto? Naked twister. Naked limbo. Naked- wait had Tosh just said something? Get her out of there? Why would I want to-Oh right dangerous alien threat, I remember now.

By the time we reached the vault Gwen was back out the cell and on her cell phone. If not for her blouse that was more open than it had been when I'd last seen her, there was no proof she's been in the cell at all. So maybe she had been trying to work information out of the creature. If that's the case, you got to admire the dedication. More importantly if this is Gwen's information gathering technique and she decides she wants to learn my secrets, life at Torchwood was going to get pretty interesting. In a good way. Now what was that noise? Owen and Gwen at it again. Hard to tell if Owen behavior is because he resents Gwen for replacing Susie or because he's trying to recreate the same combative relationship. I guess everyone grieves in their own way. It looks like Gwen has a bit of a temper. If Owen doesn't watch himself he might end up with his ass kicked. That might be fun to watch, but, as the boss, I can't really allow that kind of thing.

"You know, strictly speaking, throttling the staff is my job." Shame I don't get to do it that often. At least Owen got a little of what was coming to him, judging by the marks on his neck. Gwen was surprisingly strong. Good thing to remember.


	8. Chapter 8

"And she said

Breading bread, the oldest peace-making tradition in the world. Well technically we're breaking fortune cookies, but the concept still applies. Ianto's arrival was as timely as always. No one who saw us now would be able to guess fifteen minutes ago two people at this table had been at each others throats. Literally. Everyone was smiling and laughing as I rehashed the whole sordid tale of Mr. and Mrs. Harris. Domestic issues would be putting it lightly. Moments like these make me glad I choose Torchwood to keep me busy while I wait for the Doctor. You might think the feeling of saving the world would be better, but for me it usually isn't. Once we've stopped the current threat, I don't experience any kind of relief. I only feel tired, like Sisyphus nearing the top of the hill, knowing it's just a matter of time before the rock I'm pushing rolls down to the bottom again. These moments with my team were infinitely more important to me. The camaraderie, the innocent pleasure of sharing a meal with friends, these were the points of light in my long dark existence.

Throughout my animated story-telling I watched Gwen out of the corner of my eye. She did seem to be enjoying herself, if not quite comfortable enough to laugh. Funny that a woman who's not shy about slamming people into walls feels awkward laughing with a bunch of coworkers. She's probably focused on learning the dynamics of our group, feeling out where she would fit into the rhythm. I'd known from our first conversation that Gwen and I played off each other well. We fit. Hopefully someday I'd get to find out just how well. In the mean time there was nothing left to do but let her find her place with the others. Now as good a time as any and besides I gotta pee.

Having announced the status of my bladder to table, I took my time walking to the loo. What would they talk about? I stranded my ears, but the volume of conversation had mysteriously gone down. Well I guess that answered as much as it didn't. They're talking about me. Not that I blame them, fascinating man that I am. The question was, would Gwen feel inclined to share the secret only she and I knew. No. My instincts told me I could trust Gwen, and despite the mishaps of today, I didn't doubt them. Gwen belonged here with me. Even if the team wasn't sure, even if she herself wasn't sure, I knew. And soon they would too.

The table I came back to was much more subdued than the one I'd left. Everyone was staring at the vault monitor. The prisoner was crying. That sound's the kind of thing that can really put you off your food.

"What are we doing having Chinese while a girl fights for her life?" She used "we" instead of "you", so we made a little progress there. Now she just sounds guilty instead of accusatory. Baby steps.

"Actually, while we've been eating, the computers have been running a full bio-scan on Carys, profiling her blood, metabolism, organs, skin, the works. So we can see what effect the alien's having on her. They've also been taking samples of the air in the cell so we can analyze any changes in the environment around her. Now, is that enough? Do you want more? Cos, uh, it gets kinda boring." Starving ourselves isn't going to help anyone, nor is feeling guilty about things we can't do anything about right now. I'm going to have to teach Gwen about distance. She has so much to learn. This is somewhat ironic given the way she's looking at me right now, like an adult surveying an ignorant child.

"You've been hidden down here too long. Spending so much time with the alien stuff, you've lost what it means to be human." What it means to be human? Over all of time and space there have been more definitions of "human" than my number sexual partners. That is saying something. I wonder, immortal that I am, if I still qualify for any of them. Maybe Gwen knew the answer.

"So remind us. Tell me what it means to be human in the 21st century." A gauntlet thrown.

"All right." A challenge accepted.

Gwen immediately left the table. Tosh, Owen, and Ianto looked to me for instruction, but I figured they could do what they liked. My only concern was finishing off the Sesame noodles. So what if I had no idea what Gwen was doing? I had a half a carton to consume and nobody would tell me that I didn't have the right to enjoy it. Toshiko left the table first, claiming she had pressing results on her computer she needed to take a look at. Owen was right behind her, muttering something about needing to take the prisoner's vitals. Ianto soon after begin clearing off the empty food containers. I almost stabbed him with my chopstick when he moved to take my egg roll.

"I'm not done eating." I snatched the left over food out of his grasp. Ianto raised his eyebrows slightly but answered with his typical, "Of course not sir." He left the table with the bag of garbage, leaving me by myself with my chopsticks and hoarded food. Cowards. They had their little excuses but really they we afraid to face Miss "You've forgotten what it means to be human". You had to hand it to Gwen, she could really play the guilt card when she wanted to. She'd be a great mother someday. Or more accurately she would have been a great mother someday. Torchwood doesn't exactly offer maternity leave or daycare. Not that I would feel guilty about that. Nope I would just sit here and eat my noodles and egg roll. Even if it makes me vomit.

"Jack, would you come in here please?" Who was I to resist the request of a beautiful woman? As I tossed the food I had so determinedly saved from Ianto, I wondered what was in store for me. According to my watch Gwen had been working for twenty minutes on whatever it was she was about to show me. Had she been locating a dictionary? Preparing a speech? Making a PowerPoint presentation? Hope it's the last one. Let's face it, who doesn't love a good PowerPoint presentation.

When I walked in I saw Gwen had opted for low tech. She had covered one of our glass boards with a pile of random papers. I didn't get it.

"Carys Fletcher, born 13th November, 1987. School reports, personnel files from her temping agency, swimming badges from when she was six, reports of her mother's death in a car crash when she was ten. And last year's emails discussing the merits of Orlando Bloom and Heath Ledger." Given the amount of time Gwen had had to accumulate this stuff, it was clear she was an efficient researcher. I respected that, but I didn't think she had compiled this information just to prove to me she could. I searched for alternate motivation, but none sprang to mind.

"Why have you done this?" I had felt so confident about recruiting this woman and now I was slowly realizing I might not understand her at all.

"This isn't about meteorites or gases. We have a trapped girl and we have to save her. When I was with her in the cell, Carys told me she was losing. We have to find a way to keep her fighting, remind her to hold on to who she is." Amazing how two different people can look at the same objects and see two completely different things. I looked at the records, photographs, and emails and saw a pile of irrelevant information. Gwen looked at those documents and saw a person, an individual, a life to be saved. It was so…human. Gwen was so human she was mesmerizing.

"Have I got something on my face?" I hadn't even realized I'd be staring.

"No. Uh ..." How could I even put it into words? "Just, it's ... brilliant. You are brilliant." I'd even say radiant. She was radiant, with a warmth that made me want to reach out and touch her. But I didn't.

"Thank you." She looked at little embarrassed. I probably should stop staring, but it's impossible not to. Still if I don't, I won't be able to keep myself from doing something that might screw up my relationship with Gwen before it's even started. "So I think we should bring in her dad." That brought me back to reality.

"You're kidding, right." A civilian inside Torchwood, in close contact with a dangerous alien. Not gonna happen.

"We've got to find something to connect with her. Make her fight back." She made sense but it was still reckless.

"Our priority is to contain the alien threat. Not put civilians in a cell with it." There is a bigger picture we have to deal with. Sometimes that means we make sacrifices. It wasn't pretty, but it was reality.

"We should be helping her." I can't listen to this, I have to be strong. I have to be Captain Jack Harkness.

"Gwen there is no way –"

"If we don't, who will, Jack?" What's the matter with me? I've known her for two days and already she has this power to make me feel…something. Guilt maybe? She seemed to have that hold over Tosh, Owen, and Ianto. But it couldn't be guilt, or at least not just guilt, because I knew intimately what guilt felt like. All the things I've done, all the years I've lived I could write the book on it. This, whatever this was, felt foreign, strange.

"Are you always this awkward?" Would she always look at me like this, demanding I do better? Demanding I be better than I am?

"You should take a look at this." Tosh's voice was a welcome relief. The longer I was alone with Gwen Cooper the odds of my doing something stupid went up exponentially. I'd have to watch out for that from now on. Still the novelty of whatever it was that bound me to her was enough to make it worth it. Anything that surprises me at my age is something special.


	9. Chapter 9

"This is the normal chemical composition of the air in that cell

"This is the normal chemical composition of the air in that cell. And these ... are the readings from the last hour. The alien's secreting an ultra-powerful blend of airborne pheromones.  
Sex pheromones." God it really is like that human breeding incident from a couple of years, although those aliens had wanted the byproducts of copulation not the act itself. Still, maybe they are from the same sector of the universe. With all of that sex going around, maybe that was place I needed to visit. Maybe with a friend. Gwen was curious about alien life. What better way to immerse her in world of Torchwood than a little field trip? Ok Jack, focus on the case at hand. Jeez, how far was the range of these air-bound pheromones?

"She's a walking aphrodisiac!" Technically, with my own 51st century pheromones so am I, but I'm pretty sure I'm no where near as potent as this alien. It would be sort of depressing if my only attraction to everyone I come in contact with was the result of my generation's genetic adaptation. No, I got plenty of action with my temporal contemporaries, so it must be my personal charm.

"I did wonder why I ... Actually, I sort of snogged her." I should be relieved that my recruit doesn't make a habit of making out with dangerous captives. I really really should. Instead I feel kinda cheated, denied of what would have been a pleasant routine occurrence in my Torchwood life.

"We know." And I have no doubt in the years to come it will always be a fond memory. I should really make a copy of those tapes. For the official records, of course. Anyway, back to business.

"Now, still wanna put her father in the cell?" Talk about Electra Complex issues. Sometimes it felt so good to be right.

"God, no! We can't let any man near ..."

"Owen!" Oh no. He'd said he'd gone to take the prisoners vitals!

"Gwen, Tosh, the vaults, now!" They took off at a dead sprint while I typed frantically to bring up the camera's on Toshiko's computer. Please do not let Owen be a pile of ash. If I hadn't been so busy indulging in my own fantasies maybe I would have stopped and asked why my newest team member had acted so out character. Stupid, dangerous mistake. But fortunately not a fatal one. Owen was alive. Naked and handcuffed in a cell, but still alive.

"Jack, Carys is out of her cell." Not good, but all things considered it could be worse. The Hub was designed to secure itself from the inside as well as the outside. Only two ways in and out and Carys only knows about one of them.

"Cheeky bitch took my swipe card!" So maybe she could get through the door, but she's definitely not getting through me.

"I'll deal with it. And tell Owen he needs to work on those abs a bit harder." Once we get this thing back its cell, I think it might be healthy for the team to have a bit of laugh at Owen's expense. Good bonding experience.

I was waiting for her when she ran out of the tunnel, into the central Hub. I didn't bother drawing my gun. I wanted to take the alien down while doing as little damage to Carys as possible.

"No exit, sorry." Nice and slow, trap her into a corner. Oh crap maybe the corner with all the weapons wasn't the best choice. The prisoner swung a lethal mace-like object that barely missed me. We'd dredged the thing from the river, its origin was still undetermined. I couldn't remember if we'd discovered whether or not the spikes on the head of the weapon were tipped with poison. I don't thin I wanted to find out the hard way. If she wanted to play rough, I could play rough.

"Yeah? You want a little rough and tumble? Huh? Well, let's make it a fair fight." I grabbed a surprisingly strong wooden weapon and moved to block a blow aimed at my head. For pretty skinny kid, she was surprisingly strong. A few hits to my leg told me as much. Fighting like this was not easy. Possessed by an alien or not, I was strong enough to take her down. Problem with that was that I'd listened to a certain Welshwoman when she told me I had a responsibility to help this girl.

"You won't stop me." I would. I had to. Too late I realized once again I'd pinned the prisoner into the wrong spot. Carys had taken hostage the one artifact in this building that I could not afford to lose. The Doctor's hand.

"Put it down!" If I lost that hand I would never find him again. "That's worthless to anyone but me." I would never know what had happened to me, why he abandoned me. "Down now!" I would never be put right again. "Or I'll shoot." How far was I willing to go to be a man again?

"Says he will but the eyes say he won't." Could I? Would I? "I'm going. Don't stop me." My finger itched on the trigger. Who was I? Time agent? Con man? Hero? All of the above? None of the above?

"Please help me." Christ, she sounded so desperate. She was just a kid. I couldn't shoot. I took off after her, up the stairs and down the tunnel to Ianto's office, unsure of want I would do when I got there. How could I help her when I could barely help myself? The escaping prisoner had hit a dead end. No way out of Ianto's office without the hidden button that unlocks the door. We were at an impasse. She had the hand. I had her ticket out of here.

"Need me to do any attacking, sir?" No! Nothing that might damage the hand. Bargaining mode. Put gun away and give a gesture of good faith.

"Appreciate the offer. Just open the door." No reason everyone can't have what they want.

"Now give me the jar. NO!" I threw myself over the counter where the jar had shattered. The hand! Was the hand damaged? The fingers were still moving, no obvious cuts or abrasions. That was so close. My heart was beating twice as fast as it did when I was being attacked by a Weevil. The worse thing a Weevil could do was kill me. Not something I hadn't dealt with before. Without that hand I no hope, nothing to look forward to except a miserable endless existence of watching the world change as I stayed the same, of watching my friends die as I lived on. I refuse to let that happen to me.


	10. Chapter 10

"After all I said, a severed hand is more important to you than Carys' life

The good news was the hand was safe, well-preserved in fresh jar. Thank goodness I always keep spares lying around. Bad news was now I had my whole team staring at me like I had intentionally released a dangerous alien threat on the world. Ok, technically I did, but it's not like I had a choice, and besides if memory serves both Gwen and Owen had a little something to do with this mess.

"After all I said, a severed hand is more important to you than Carys' life." It was like having my own personal Jiminy Cricket. I thought about telling my new conscience that the only way I was going to become a "real boy" again was by keeping that jar safe. Then again why should I tell her? I'm the boss, I don't answer to Gwen, she answers to me.

"You want to prove yourself? Find her. Get your old pals in the police to do something useful for once." I'm sure _Andy_ would be only too glad take a break from his busy schedule of writing tickets and munching on donuts to do Gwen a favor. _Andy_. God I really did hate that name.

"All right, I'll give them a call. Put out an APB - woman possessed by gas knobbing fellas to death." Very professional, Gwen. Very funny. Well actually it was pretty funny. And accurate. Cops tended to ask a lot of questions. Questions we can't answer. That's one of reasons getting outside help is generally a last resort.

"Oi! You'd better get in here!" At least someone has had a breakthrough. Although from the sounds of it, whatever it is, it's not good. Owen led us to medical center. It's funny but it's usually only times like these, when he is wearing his white coat, that I remember he's a real doctor, not just a Torchwood agent with medical skills.

"So I'm trying to interpret the results of the bio-scan. Yeah, but it's just a mess, like there's no definitive readings. Because everything in her body keeps changing, nothing stays constant. So, as soon as you think you've got something clear, the metabolic rate, the blood pressure all goes wild again." That makes sense given what Gwen saw in the cell, and what I saw as Carys was escaping.

"Because she's fighting the alien for control of her own body." I've been possessed once myself. The alien did things with my body even I wasn't comfortable with. It was one of the most awful memories I had. Still I got the bastard in the end and I would do the same to this one.

"Yeah. So anyway, I decided to do a comparative diagnostic. Uh, recreate the circumstances, accelerate the process a little, see what's gonna happen to Carys."

"Yeah, thanks." Looks like a bit of a truce there. I guess getting caught with his pants down has taught Owen a little humility. Wonder how long that will last.

"I infected the rat with a combination of the Vorax and Suranium gas traces we found down at the crash site and at the nightclub."

"Looks fine so far." Man do I have a bad feeling about the punch line of this experiment.

"Once the gases start to flow round the body, the party really starts. The heart rate triples. The brain swells, pressing against the skull. And as that keep going, then the lungs began to shrink, making it impossible to breathe. The pressure increases on all the internal organs until ...Rat jam!" I take it back, even with his lab coat I have trouble picturing Owen tending to living, human patients.

"That's what's gonna happen to Carys?" Makes the high-jacking of my body seem like a misdemeanor. If this is going to be the end result, I might as well have shot her myself when I let her out that door.

""I'm losing", that's what she said to me." And when she finally lost I'd have even more blood on my hands, which by rights should already be the color of rust.

"Right now, it's a struggle between where Carys ends and the alien begins." No time for guilt.

"All right everyone at the risk of sound cliché we need to go back to the drawing board." The team headed out of medical center and gathered round the board where Gwen had posted Carys' background information. A small photo on the lower right hand side caught my eye. It was a picture of baby Carys. God only knew how Gwen had gotten her hands on that shot. The child was smiling with a look of blissful ignorance only the young have.

"We have to think like her." Gwen's words gave me something besides my own guilt to think about. "Put ourselves in her place. It's the only way to find her." But which her, Carys or the sex-starved alien?

"Except we don't know what her controlling impulse is by now - Carys or the alien inside. The last thing I saw was a fight for control." When Carys had begged for my help and I'd chosen the hand over her.

"The overriding factor for the parasite is to have sex. It's a survival instinct - that's bound to be the strongest drive." Makes sense. Even for creatures that don't need it to survive, sex usually runs a close second to breathing. I would know better than most.

"All right, so you're Carys. You're desperate for sex cos that's what the thing inside you needs, but you know it will kill. Where would you go?" Alright let's free associate: Sex, bars, nightclubs, lap dances, Gwen, Ianto-

"I'd come round and shag you." Owen was inches from being throttled. I did tell Gwen it was my job after all. "What?! It's a joke! Can't I have a joke with my team-mates?" Why couldn't Owen have a more productive way of dealing with tension?

"Right now? No." So we are back to my list, missus the two members of my staff that somehow slipped in there at the end.

"So what are we talking about? Brothels? Lap dance clubs? Anywhere there's eager men?" As far as what I've seen of Cardiff, that doesn't narrow it down much.

"I know what I'd do." Tosh's voice seemed distant like she was imagining something fascinating in her mind's eye.

"Care to share with the rest of group?" Tosh blinked as though she was clearing her mind of whatever she'd been thinking and blushed slightly.

"I'd head over to my ex-boyfriend's flat." Whoa. I'd never imagined Toshiko as a "hell hath no fury" type, but that just goes to show what I know.

"Geez Tosh, remind me never to date you." I wonder if Owen noticed how unhappy Tosh looked when he said things like that to her. Probably not as it wouldn't be keeping with the Cardiff's biggest bastard persona he'd adopted upon arrival to discourage any sympathy from the team members who knew about his dead fiancé. Owen obviously preferred being thought an asshole to being pitied.

"Tosh's theory isn't bad but I don't want to put all our eggs in one basket. Tosh and Owen, I want you two investigating the brothels and strip clubs."

"No worries boss, I think I know exactly where to start." I'm not even a little surprised.

"If you find her, you call me, you do not attempt to capture her yourself. Toshiko, you do not let Owen out of your sight for a minute. Are we clear?" Toshiko nodded and Owen gave a grunt of acknowledgment. They ran off toward the exit arguing about whose car they were going to take.

"What about me Jack?" Gwen sounded like she was afraid I was planning to leave her behind. Hardly what I had in mind.

"You are going to help me track down Carys' exes. Girl that cute is bound to have a few."

Gwen raised her eyebrows critically.

"A bit young for you isn't she Jack?" Gwen really had no idea. And was it possible she sounded a little jealous? Maybe just a little wishful thinking on my part.

"I was speaking from a purely professional standpoint. Any of her emails give you a name?" Gwen picked up the file of information that she'd decided against plastering all over the board.

"I remember she mentioned she was seeing someone, an older bloke who was a real bastard to her. I don't think she mentioned any names. Probably scared her dad would read her emails. We're out of luck there, but the night she was at the club, she made three calls to this number here." Gwen handed me the print out. She was right. It was true, Carys could have been calling a friend, but my feeling was good on this. If we found who the number belonged to, we'd find the ex.


	11. Chapter 11

"We're too late

Tosh's hunch turned out dead on about the ex-boyfriend. Emphasis on dead. Not only were we too late to catch Carys, but now we had no idea where she would head next. Despite what I told Gwen, Carys' short romantic history was a factor working against us. A longer list of possible victims might have given us a clue to where she was going. We regrouped with Tosh and Owen, who temporally abandoned the spare car in the lap dance club's parking lot. Their investigation had turned up nothing, although according to Tosh not for lack of trying on Owen's part.

"For the last time Tosh, I was gathering information."

"I was able to interview the bouncer without having him straddle me."

"I was being polite. It's rude to interrupt someone while they're trying to earn a living. I figured there was no harm in letting us both do our jobs at the same time." Amusing as this was, it was time to cut this conversation off. Not that this wasn't an important discussion, but we needed to get back to the slightly large issue of the killer alien.

"So what's our next move?" Got to hope somebody in the car had a better idea than I did.

"Stop the entire city of Cardiff from shagging?" Brilliant solution Owen. About as easy a task as creating world peace.

"Hm. Put bromide in the water supply." We'd gone the chemical route last time when we were dealing with the aliens trying to spawn their next generation using women as incubators.

"No, too hit and miss." We'd learned then how irregularly some people in Cardiff shower and wash their hands. It was a little disturbing.

"Yeah. The water company got pissed off last time we did that." Between the little tyrannical man who ran the treatment plant and the creatures that had been ripping themselves out of the women's wombs, I'd face the creatures again any day.

"It could have used any body in Cardiff. Why her?" Tosh had a point. Even if it couldn't get to us through our gas masks there was still a whole camp full of soldiers, both male and female, a whole lot closer than Carys.

"I just assumed it was random." But it wasn't. I should have seen this before.

"It's mining Carys' life to get what it needs." The ex-boyfriend taught us that. The key to finding next victims is somewhere in that stack of papers Gwen accumulated.

"So, what else do we know about her?" I can remember exactly the way Gwen had looked at me when she said we should be helping Carys, but when it came to the details of her presentation I drew a blank.

"Anything you can think of?" Please let Gwen remember something useful.

"What are you all looking at me for?" Because you're the only one who bothered to find out anything about our victim/target.

"You did all the profiling!" While we were off having Chinese.

"I don't know. Sorry." Fair or unfair, first day or not I can't let her off the hook when she's our best bet of finding the girl.

"She's really great under pressure." At this point Owen's unpleasantness barely registers on my radar. Gwen is the priority.

"There's gotta be something. What did you say Carys' job was?" That had to be relevant, even people who didn't work for Torchwood spent most of their lives doing there jobs. God knows how they did it, the same dull things day in and day out. If I had a job like that that I'd probably shoot myself in the head for amusement every day.

"She's just a temp. Receptionist." Hard to see how that would interest the alien, unless Carys had an inappropriate male boss. Sexual harassment was still a pretty touchy issue in this century. Only way to find out is to track down the boss.

"Where's she working at the moment?" Please say somewhere close by.

"I can pull her employment files up. Conway Clinic." And the address is….

"You're joking." I can't really see how any of this is funny.

"What's the problem?" Please let Owen be contributing something useful for a change.

"It's a bloody fertility clinic. Sperm donors. An unlimited supply of orgasmic energy without all the build-up." Ladies and gentlemen we have a winner. Enter Conway clinic into the GPS and bingo we've got her. Maybe twenty minutes away from our currently location. Let's see if I can't make it in ten.

"Owen." He didn't need to ask what I wanted, we done this too many times. Owen opened the weapons case and passed back firearms to Toshiko and Gwen. The alien was too desperate and out of control for me to justify denying Gwen the right to protect herself.

"What's this for?" You'd think a former police constable would understand the concept of a gun.

"Need a diagram?" Fairly simple really, pull the trigger, the bullets go into the other guy.

"I've never used a gun." She's kidding right. Please let her be kidding.

"You were in the police!" I may not be that familiar with the inner-workings of law enforcement, but I at least assumed they carried something besides badges to stop escaping criminals.

"I was on the beat!" And that means what, any armed criminals that came her way wouldn't be threat to her because she hadn't made desk-sergeant yet? Who the hell were the Cardiff police to endanger Gwen by sending her out on the street without any protection?! Clearly not an organization that ever deserved her.

"Carry it. I'll make sure you don't need to use it." I at least am responsible enough to protect her.

"What do we do if we find her? How are we going to get it out of her?" Good question.

"Judging by the test results, the gas needed a host because prolonged exposure to our atmosphere is poisonous to it. But our bodies are the perfect environment." See I knew there was a reason we spent so much time on the science.

"So, if we isolate it from Carys' body ..."

"It won't survive for long."

"Sounds like we have ourselves a plan." Alien dead. City secured. All in a day's work.

"Force it to die." I wonder what's going through Gwen's mind right now. I can't imagine someone who's never held a gun has a whole lot of experience with killing, let alone killing sentient creatures.

"Just like it did those poor blokes." They are the real victims, the ones to remember, them and the future victims won't even know they've been saved.

"What about Carys?" I wish I could say something comforting right now, like 'we'll save her' but I have now idea how this will play out.

"Better start praying we get to her in time." Praying, now there's something I haven't done in a few decades. Maybe it was time to make an exception. It hasn't happened often in Torchwood history and but occasionally there have been recruits haven't lasted past their first Torchwood assignment. Some are too horrified by what they see. Some are too horrified by what we do. Some die. Like I said, it doesn't often happen, but it does happen. Since I took over Torchwood less than a decade ago I haven't lost anyone. I'll damned before I let Gwen become my first.


	12. Chapter 12

The body count had gone up five, but it would stop there

The body count had gone up five, but it would stop there. My team had spread out, blocking all the exits and trapping Carys in the center of the room.

"Nowhere to run." Christ the girl looked sick.

"All this sex. All we see, all we think. So much beauty ... and so much fear. We want it but we're so afraid of it ... Ah!" Her thoughts were erratic, scattered. She couldn't have much time left. Gwen, whose compassion obviously drove her as powerfully as sex drove the alien, held the dying girl in her arms. I wonder if it was the alien or Carys who received the benefits of that comfort. Maybe both.

"The strain on her body's too much. Any second now, she's rat jam." A girl dead and Gwen covered in her blood. Was that something anyone recovered from?

"One more and I'll be strong. Each time, it works less. Each time, the feeling's weaker. One more. Make me feel alive. Make me feel human." Was that what it came down to, the human instinct to touch and be touched? What did that say about me when I preached distance to myself and my team.

"I can't." But Gwen would if she could. I could hear it in her voice, the yearning to relieve the pain of another.

"I can." What have I got to lose? It was what Gwen had said earlier, if I don't, who will.

"Jack!" She worried about me too, even though she knows I can't die. It was nice. Unnecessary, but nice.

"I've got a surplus of alive. I'm giving it away. You really want to feel something?" I put everything I had into that kiss, my centuries of experience and as much life force as I could. Over the decades I'd done this about two dozen times, transmitted the unnatural energy that flowed thru me into an injured friend to revive them. It wasn't enough by itself to save them, but sometime it gives them just enough strength to save themselves. When I felt Carys reach the max capacity I broke the connection. "That was just the kiss. Imagine the buzz you get from the rest." The girl grinned back at me for a moment before dropping into a dead faint. "It wasn't exactly the reaction I anticipated." I had hoped it would save her, but I knew Carys' unconscious state had nothing to do with my kissing expertise.

"Her body won't last much longer." I had failed.

"Use me. Leave Carys. Take my body as host. And just let her live." What was she thinking? Did she care so little for her own life that she'd give away for this stranger? Well, I cared and no matter how guilty I felt about the girl on the floor, I was not about to Gwen let be taken from me.

"Gwen ..." You're mine. You're not allowed to do this. I forbid you.

"I'm stronger than she is. I'll last longer. You might be able to save me, I don't know." Even she doesn't believe it. How can she sit there so calmly and ask my permission to die? How could she expect me to say yes after all she's given to look forward to? But maybe I would only have to say yes, while meaning no. I had just remembered what I had left in the pocket of coat.

"Okay." I delivered the line perfectly. Cold and uncaring, that was what I needed our gaseous friend to see me as. Shouldn't be such a stretch, it had already seen me sacrifice seven lives for one severed hand.

"Jack! You can't let her!" Toshiko at least seemed to buying the performance. I should take comfort in the disbelief in her voice, but right now all I can think of is Gwen.

"Like she said ... She's responsible for this." If that last comment didn't convince the alien what a bastard I am, nothing would. Gwen should stand up and slap me for acting like such a son-of-a-bitch but of course she doesn't. She is Gwen Cooper and therefore she alone must bear the weight of the world. It's a good thing I moved to stand behind her. Seeing her face at this moment with her fear and her guilt might have destroyed my painstakingly maintained composure.

"Come on, then. Do it. Leave her." There are things Torchwood members need to be able do their job well. The ability to operate our computer programs, the ability to take measurements with our field equipment, the ability to use a gun. These things can be taught. Compassion, courage and a willingness to die for others, can not. This is why I need Gwen Cooper. This is why the mass of pink currently extracting itself from Carys should know better than to believe I'd let her go.

I threw the portable cell just as the creature was poised to enter Gwen. It howled like a prehistoric dinosaur in its rage at my deception. Too damn bad. Anything that threatens my city and especially my team loses all my sympathy. I looked over at Gwen to offer some kind of assurance that I had never planned to sacrifice her to my endgame, but she was too stunned to notice. Having resolved to give her life for Carys I imagine she felt a little odd over not being dead.

"How long can it survive in there?"

"It was pretty weak. Why?"

"Bit worried how long that battery'll last for." I had no such concerns. The alien was dying already when it was in its preferred environment. In an atmosphere fatal to it, I wouldn't bet on it lasting a full minute, never mind a full hour.

"Look ... It's dying." I must have been imagining the hint of regret I heard in her voice. No one was that good as person. I had to admit though, it was depressing in its own way.

"You travel halfway across the universe for the greatest sex. You still end up dying alone." Sounds like the story of my life, except instead of dying alone, I get to live alone. Forever.

What happened next happened so fast I almost thought I imagined. Gwen kissed me. She put her hand on my chin, tilted it toward her, and pressed her lips briefly against mine. And then it was over. She thanked me got up and headed back out the SUV. I was the one rooted to the spot. That never happens. Ever. My knowledge of intimate touch compared to what the Kama Sutra holds is like comparing the Library of Congress to the non-fiction section of your local primary school. Nothing should be able to shock me. But this kiss did. It was as though my skin meeting hers had triggered some kind of latent genetic memory and sparked a series of neurological recognitions that traveled all the way down to my toes. I touched my lips, mainly to reassure myself there had been no outward change. I felt like I'd been branded somehow. I couldn't help but think, if that was just the kiss, what kind of buzz would I get from the rest?


	13. Chapter 13

It had been a long night but not the longest I'd ever had

It had been a long night, but not the longest I'd ever had. Owen had spent most of the night doing a complete workup on Carys, running her for everything from traces of the gas to STDs. By morning he'd finally been able to give her a clean bill health. Every one else had been busy identifying the five victims from the clinic and orchestrating the cover-up of their deaths. Gwen didn't object this time. I couldn't say whether it was because she'd come round to Torchwood's way of thinking or because she was just too exhausted to argue.

.

In addition to all the clean-up details she handled, Gwen had made the time to check in on Carys. These little visits seemed to lift the girl's spirits a little. Owen was being downright pleasant for him, but on his best day he couldn't be the warm presence Gwen could be on her worst. Gwen was using that warmth right, now holding Carys as she cried.

They sat together on the same coach Gwen had sat on after she saw Susie killed herself. Gwen held the girl close to her chest, as I had wanted to hold Gwen that night, but had been too afraid to. Gwen looked up suddenly, as though she felt my eyes on her, staring through a hole the glass board that had not been covered in papers. She didn't move her head or jostle Carys. She just looked at me, looking at her. After a few moments I turned away, afraid I had interrupted something private, an emotional exchange I had no right butting into.

"Jack." I turned and saw Gwen was no longer with Carys, but standing right behind me. She looked more unsure of herself than she had in the past twelve hours. Toshiko and Owen had both responded to the change. Not only were the openly antagonist comments gone, but so were the furtive looks that they may not have even been conscious of giving. When she offered to die for the Carys, Gwen had shown her team members that she was Torchwood material. I couldn't say I was surprised, I'd known she was all along.

"How's she doing?" I nodded toward the girl who had curled herself in a ball and closed her eyes, evidently trying to sleep. Gwen bit her lip and looked over as well.

"She's not doing well Jack. It may have been too much with the alien, and being possessed, nearly dying, not to mention all the deaths. I don't think she'll ever really recover." Gwen paused and looked back at me. "Not without our help. Jack, I want to give her the amnesia pill." I had to admit to a little surprise. I'd had the pill ready since we got back to the Hub, I'd just been waiting for the right time to slip it to her. What was surprising was Gwen embracing the Torchwood protocol in this way. Not too long ago she had voiced some pretty strong objections to it and to the person who gave it to her, namely me. Called me a bastard as I recall.

"The amnesia pill?"

"What? Don't tell me you ran out." Gwen put her hands on her hips and gave me the most patronizing look I'd ever gotten in my life, including the time I spent with the Doctor. Any effort to stop myself from making a move on my newest recruit was quite clearly going to be wasted. How was I supposed remember ethics and sexual harassment laws when she was looking at me like that? Not to mention the way it felt to have her lips pressed against mine…

"No, I keep them up in my office, I'll show you, if you'd care to join me." Actually I had the pill in my pocket, but I had a few other things I wanted to show Gwen and I wanted to be somewhere with blinds when I pulled them out.

"Alright." Gwen followed close behind me until we were halfway up the stairs. Suddenly she stopped and swore under her breath.

"Something wrong?" We were only fifteen feet from my door. I only to had steer her five more yards and she was mine. Gwen smiled at me, apologetic, completely unaware my dishonorable intentions.

"It's just my phone, it keeps vibrating. Rhys has been calling me every fifteen minutes, asking me when I'll finally be coming home." Rhys. Gwen's boyfriend who she lived with. Shit.

"He must miss you a lot to be calling that much." An attentive boyfriend. Great. Why couldn't have she been seeing some oblivious moron who didn't realize what a lucky bastard he was. But then again maybe he wasn't attentive, maybe he was a controlling, possessive maniac. I liked this line of thinking, I could steal Gwen away from this lunatic and not feel the least bit guilty about it.

"He's just worried about what time to put dinner in the oven. He made his mother's special lasagna to celebrate my first day in "special ops" and he's wants to be sure it's fresh out of the oven when I get home." There was so much domestic bliss in those sentences, it made me want to vomit Toll House cookies. Gwen's embarrassed but happy smile said everything I needed to know. I wasn't going to make it the last five yards.

"Call him back. Tell him you'll be home by six." I could do this, I could be the good guy, I could give up what I want.

"Are you sure Jack?" For a second I thought she could read my mind.

"Of course I'm sure. You've had, what, three hours of sleep in the past forty hours? If I keep you here much longer you could have a psychotic episode from lack of sleep and I'd be stuck training another replacement. It's purely self-interest." This was enough, watching Gwen smile at me in gratitude was enough. It would have to be.

"Thanks Jack. What about Carys' amnesia pill?"

"I'll take of it. I'm pretty good at slipping them into people's drinks."

"I remember." We both laughed at the shared memory, although I couldn't help thinking that if we were a couple, how the story would play to a room full of strangers. Gwen would ask me to tell the story of our first date, then I'd say 'no you tell it better' and she'd laugh and say 'Well it all started when Jack slipped a drug iinto my drink without my knowledge…'. Yeah that would go over real well. Whatever our relationship came to be, Gwen had a real domestic life with someone else that I had no right to destroy. I would respect that.


	14. Chapter 14

Gwen asked me to go with her when we took Carys home

Gwen asked me to go with her when we took Carys home. I didn't want to at first. Seven deaths take a lot of work to clean up, a lot of paper trails, a lot of corpses. But Gwen had insisted she needed me to give the cover story more credibility. We had told Carys she'd been taken hostage by men involved with international terrorism, and keep in a drugged sleep for two days. We told her we'd raided the cell, found her held captive and saved her. It was partly true and at any rate it was a story that worked well for everybody. Carys forgot the guilt and horror of her last forty-eight hours, and Torchwood kept its secrets safe.

I had gone in first to talk to the father while Gwen had waited with Carys in the car. I'd given him the cover story, told him the men responsible were being punished, but I wasn't at liberty to discuss it further. I'd advised him not to speak of what had happened to anyone, and he'd agreed without really hearing me. He had told me he just wanted to see his daughter.

When Gwen brought in Carys I realized this was the real reason she'd wanted me here. So I could see this man embrace his only child. So I could see the family that I'd saved. She was doing what I'd asked, showing me what it meant to be human in the twenty-first century.

A few hours later I still felt the residual effects of that moment. My pride, not only in myself for saving the family, but also in Gwen and everything she stood for. Even doing so commonplace a thing as removing papers from the board she was mesmerizing. I couldn't help but stare. Eventually I'd had reminded myself it wasn't my place to.

"Still here? Everybody else is off doing ... whatever it is they do when they're not here." In Owen's case I'm not even sure I wanted to know.

"How long have you been there?" Too long for a man whose just your boss. Not nearly long enough for me. "I wanted to finish off."

Here we were, in Torchwood completely alone. Now the question was which Jack would take control. Having met the Freud and known him for the lunatic that he was, I've never put much stock in his theories. Not to brag, but the man's whole phallic symbol obsession started after the good doctor and I had a few "sessions" together. I had to admit however, that the war I felt within myself seemed a lot like a battle of the superego and the id. Superego Jack said retcon Gwen for a second time and send her away before Torchwood destroyed the miracle that she was. Id Jack said pummel Rhys into a spineless lump and screw Gwen until she couldn't even remember the meaning of the word "lasagna". Jack forced himself to mediate a compromise between the two, although Id Jack complained he was getting the short end of the stick.

"Do one thing for me. Don't let the job consume you. You have a life. Perspective. We need that." Yeah sure this wasn't about me. It was about Torchwood. It's always about Torchwood.

"Who are you, Jack?" Uh oh. How obvious I had been with the whole id, superego thing?

"I'm sorry?" I'd always prided myself on my facial control. The smallest twitch could have proved deadly in my old line of work. If I'd lost it now, I needed to know.

"You can't die. You tell me the 21st century is when it all changes, that we have to be prepared." Gwen was just asking about my generally mysterious nature, not anything specific I'd done to tip her off. Good, I was afraid I'd gotten rusty.

"So you do." At least that's what the man with the watch had said. Given the circumstances under which he'd told me maybe I shouldn't be trusting his judgment so completely. But he'd been my friend. I had to believe what he'd seen was beyond imagination to have made him do what he'd done.

"But how can you know?" What could I say? That a man who had murdered his friends and coworkers told me so?

"You think knowing the answers would make you feel better?" Trust me, they wouldn't.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?" I wanted to tell her. I wanted to confess everything, the whole sordid history of who I was, what I was. I wanted be really seen by this extraordinary woman. But how could I tell her when I knew doing so would make her despise me? I needed my shadows to hide what I am. Better that I stay down here and leave her to a man who could walk in the light.

"Go home, Gwen Cooper. Eat lasagna. Kiss your boyfriend. Be normal. For me."


End file.
